The Air Force wants to look at developing new standards for its remotely piloted aircraft network, so allies and other services can see and receive data generated off of a range of sensors, “tag” it for use or storage, and move it along to the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS). Brig. Gen. (select) Mark Westergren, director of plans, strategy, doctrine, and force development for the Air Staff’s ISR shop, said a good amount of attention is being paid to building up on-board processing capabilities in RPAs, due to the levels of bandwidth involved in these operations. Officials also are looking at using more modular systems and insuring command and control and communications tools are more survivable. However, Air Force planners note that not all environments will be as permissive as the one RPAs have operated in over Iraq and Afghanistan.
The successful second flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket on Nov. 13 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., also included a first for the company—the launcher’s booster stuck its landing on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean.
